Home advantage for Leicester in a play-off semi-final has in the past been a passport to Twickenham, but Saturday's all-Midlands affair with Northampton looks far from a foregone conclusion. Tigers or Tiggers?

Leicester, a bit like Munster, have mutated from a side that looked to squeeze opponents and play the percentages into one with boundless ambition. They finished the regular Premiership season as the leading try scorers, with 47 of their 67 touchdowns supplied by backs while five of the other 20 were penalty tries.

They have become the entertainers of the Premiership, sharing a 41-41 frolic with Gloucester at Welford Road, but their more open style has compromised what had long been a characteristic of Leicester, an ability to close out tight matches. They were leading against Gloucester until the final play of the game having been edged out by Saracens in the previous league match at Welford Road.

They did rally in the final quarter against London Irish last weekend, but there is something strangely vulnerable about Leicester. A year ago, they throttled Bath in the semi-final and were smoked out by Saracens in a compelling final at Twickenham, snatching victory with a try at the death, but they appear more idealistic now.

Northampton are the Leicester of old, using their power at forward to subdue opponents, supplemented by controlling half-backs. The Saints are dangerous on the counterattack through their back three, but it is hard to see them throwing out a long pass with seconds remaining when they were seven points up, as Jeremy Staunton did against Gloucester only to see it intercepted.

Leicester did recover from a poor start at home to Northampton in January, but it is their only victory against a top-four side this season. They were doubled by Saracens, lost at Kingsholm and, on the opening weekend of the season, were overpowered by the Saints at Franklin's Gardens.

It has never paid in the past to bet against Leicester. They have never lost a play-off semi-final, including two in the wild-card system that was included in the early years of the play-offs to accommodate teams who had missed out on the top four. Seven semis in all, seven victories, and they are chasing a third consecutive Premiership title.

They have a team rippling with internationals, a front row able to stand up to Northampton's and two of the leading back rowers in the Premiership, Tom Croft and Thomas Waldrom, but they are not the pack the Tigers boasted at the start of the play-off system. Martin Johnson, Ben Kay, Neil Back and Lewis Moody have all departed and it is in the second row and at breakaway that Leicester lack the cachet of old.

They have the England half-backs Ben Youngs and Toby Flood, but cold calculation is not their forte. The greater the tempo of the game, the better for Leicester. They long wearied at what they saw was an unfair perception of them as a functional, mechanical side, just as Northampton now bridle at accusations of conservatism, but they would take the ugliest of victories on Saturday.

Northampton would not say so, but it is not fanciful to suggest they would rather go to Welford Road than Vicarage Road. Saracens won the semi-final at Franklin's Gardens a year ago, a few weeks after winning there in the regular season, and they have a capacity for ruffling the Saints.

Sarries do not take liberties like Leicester and they scored barely more than half the tries in the regular Premiership season than the Tigers ran in, but they know how to prevail. They won their last 10 Premiership matches and lost only four in all, missing out on the top spot because they did not accumulate as many bonus points as Leicester.

They doubled Leicester and Northampton and their only defeat to a top-four side was at Kingsholm last November. The team spirit they forged under Brendan Venter has survived his return to South Africa, although he makes regular visits to Britain. If Toulon have offered proof this season that spending does not guarantee success, Saracens are a counter-argument.

Their recruitment, Gavin Henson apart, has been spot-on, identifying players who will not only be worth their place but who will fit into the environment created by Venter. Matt Stevens started playing in January after the end of his two-year ban for failing a drugs test and got on with it from the start.

While Henson bridled at being asked to play at outside-centre, a position where he knew he would not be considered by Wales, Stevens played on whichever side of the scrum he was asked to without complaint. Individual disappointment is expected to be muted in the interests of the team; Henson was never going to fit in.

Gloucester are, perhaps, the surprise element in the top four, especially after their start to the season when they lost at Exeter and were within a minute of being beaten at home by Leeds. While they have an excellent record against the top four, they lost to the bottom three and owe their place in the play-offs principally to their excellent record at Kingsholm: they were the only team to win all 11 home league matches.

They were less impressive on the road, winning at Bath, Wasps and Northampton and drawing at Leicester. They will give it a go on Sunday, but how far they get will depend on their accuracy under pressure.

A reprise of last season's final is being offered by bookmakers. While Leicester have only the one prize to aim for, there is little chance that Northampton will be distracted by the following week's Heineken Cup final. They have the chance to alter the balance of power in the Premiership and power is their game.

Whither Woodward?

The Rugby Football Union this week announced an eminently sensible change to the job description for its new performance director. No longer would his portfolio include the senior England side. He would not be Martin Johnson's immediate boss.

The reaction, in some quarters, was hysterical. It was seen as a deliberate slap in the face for Sir Clive Woodward, the 2003 World Cup-winning coach, who was said to be ready to turn his back on a return to Twickenham as the elite position had been downgraded.

Woodward has said publicly that he has not applied for the position, but he is on the three-man shortlist: the candidates are due to be interviewed next week. When the Rugby Football Union chief executive, John Steele, announced at the start of the year that he was shaking up the administration at Twickenham and creating three new rugby directorships, the one that seized the headlines was the performance role.

It was seen as the perfect fit for Woodward and the position became subsumed into personality – his. Never mind that the job was essentially about the development of talent at a national level from the age-groups upwards; it was seen as the steed on which Woodward could ride back into Twickenham and restore success. England would have a new supremo and no one else need apply.

If Woodward is, as his supporters say, unlikely to want the job now that it does not carry any involvement with the England side, he is not the right person for it because 95% of its responsibility is concerned with other matters. The decision to change the portfolio has been credited to Steele following a meeting with Johnson on Monday, but it was agreed, unanimously, at a meeting of the RFU's management board on 27 April.

The RFU's mistake was to include England in the job description in the first place, not to remove it, even if belatedly. Steele has a rugby background, having been in charge of Northampton when they won the Heineken Cup in 2000, and, while his role is broad, he has always been the obvious person for Johnson to report to.

As will be the case up to the World Cup. After that, Johnson's contract will be near its end and the portfolio of the performance director will be reviewed. The RFU has not handled the appointment process smoothly: the interviews for the performance job were originally designed to be held in tandem with those for the operations and community roles, but at least it acted decisively to correct a mistaken impression.

The union is not looking for an England supremo. It wants someone to run a department that will ensure talent is identified from an early age and that systems are in place for it to flow into the England side. It is not about dealing with finished articles. It should still suit Woodward, but is it all cake and no cream?

The perils of celebrity

The Wales coach, Warren Gatland, announced this week that Gavin Henson was back in the fold more than two years after the centre had last played in an international.

Gatland was announcing his squad for next month's match against the Barbarians in Cardiff and all the media attention was on Henson. That's an exaggeration: a question was asked about Andy Powell's absence.

Gatland was ready for his questioners. "The problem with anything about Gavin Henson is that you guys try to sell newspapers by using him in the headline," he said. "Are you more happy than I am that you can write a story about him? I would just like to talk about him as a rugby player."

Touché, even if a problem in recent years has been that there is all too little to talk about regarding Henson the rugby player. Like Danny Cipriani, who seems to be orchestrating a premature end to his stay in Melbourne, there seems to be a percussive need to remain in the limelight, as if the only bad publicity is no publicity.

Both players would do well to look at the ultimate British sports celebrity, David Beckham. No matter what he has done away from football, the sport has driven his celebrity, as if he is only too aware that his value will drop if he messes up in his main job.

Henson and Cipriani have become too wrapped up in what does not matter. Henson does have another, perhaps final, chance, but he will be of little use to Wales in the run-up to the World Cup unless he puts rugby first and does not expect to be given time to be interviewed by a celebrity magazine while other players are doing fitness training.

As for Cipriani, he has become, in the words of the song, sadly sorta like a soap opera. What is talent without application? Does he know what he wants?